2 Struggling Single Mothers Share Fate, Link To One Man

Kitty Kleinkauf and Mindy Leigh had much in common: They were both single mothers struggling financially to hold their families together. They both traveled in the same social circles at the fringes of Guilford, defying the town's staid, wealthy stereotype. They even lived, at different times, on the same street.

And they shared a dangerous bond: a connection to a convicted felon named John Mills, who police say eventually would deal them a final shared trait as victims of brutal crimes.

FOR THE RECORD - Correction published January 12, 2001.The names of two of Katherine Kleinkauf's children were misspelled in some stories about the killing of Kleinkauf and two of her children. Rachael Crum, 6, was killed along with Kleinkauf. Alyssa Kleinkauf was one of two surviving children.

Kitty Kleinkauf was a Guilford native, born Katherine Duffy in 1957. She married young and divorced young, and by her mid-20s had a new name and baby daughter, Denise.

Over the next dozen years, she would endure several more soured romantic relationships and have three more children, one by her second husband, two by other men. Even as the family grew beyond her financial ability to support them, her loyalty to her children was awesome, friends said.

The family moved frequently around Guilford, once renting an apartment on Old Whitfield Street, the same street where John Mills would later meet Leigh.

Kleinkauf eventually settled on Field Road, less than a mile from Mills and Leigh, in a small white bungalow owned by a Guilford housing group that rented to low-income families who couldn't afford the town's steep home prices.

Friends say Kleinkauf picked this home because it faced a softball field where her children could play. Neighbors say her children were practically fixtures at the field, where they would play with their dog, Herman, and chip golf balls.

Kleinkauf took a job cleaning homes and businesses with a Branford company and used the few extra dollars each month to spruce up what had been a nondescript little house.

Neighbors say Kleinkauf did odd jobs for people around the neighborhood to earn extra money, including walking people's dogs in the park and along the shore. She used the dog-walking money to buy little extras for her children.

``She didn't want her kids to look or feel poor,'' said a neighbor who walks his dog at the park and frequently played with Kleinkauf's children.

She was part of a loosely knit social circle that enjoyed Guilford's string of working-class neighborhood bars and included some of her own family, such as her oldest daughter and her nephew, John Mills.

But it remains unclear how close Kleinkauf and Mills were. Some of her friends do not recall her mentioning Mills, but Kyle's father, Thomas Redway, said Mills was a frequent visitor to the home Redway used to share with Kleinkauf.

Kleinkauf moved into her Field Road home with Redway. The two eventually split, enduring a bitter divorce and custody fight that prompted lawsuits and a face-slapping incident, after which Redway was arrested.

But Redway's attorney, William Bloss of New Haven, said the couple had stopped fighting during the last days of Kleinkauf's life and had agreed to a complicated custody arrangement. Kyle stayed with Redway on Wednesdays and alternating weekends.

The last time Redway saw his son was Monday night, when Kyle came to his house to open Christmas presents, Bloss said. Redway dropped Kyle off at Kleinkauf's at 8 p.m. and didn't learn of the boy's death until he returned.

He drove up to the Kleinkauf house at 5 p.m., about five hours after one of Kyle's half-sisters had discovered the bloodied bodies inside the bungalow.

The police informed Redway of Kyle's death at the police station, Bloss said. Redway answered the detectives' questions about his whereabouts on Tuesday and the couple's tumultuous relationship. Bloss said Redway cooperated with the police.

Redway is devastated by the apparent randomness of his son's death, Bloss said.

``Thomas has to live with the fact that if it had been a different night, that his son would still be alive,'' Bloss said, referring to the couple's custody schedule. ``Wednesday is his normal visit night -- one day too late.''

Mindy Leigh had none of the family connections and few of the local ties that Kleinkauf had, but her link to Mills was fast and dangerous. Family members said that when Leigh and her 2-year-old daughter moved into her sister's Guilford home this summer, Mills, a neighbor two doors down, was one of the first people Leigh met.

She had been living in her native Texas until her boyfriend, the father of her daughter, was jailed on a drug charge. She moved to her sister's home in Guilford to wait out the jail term. She said she was planning to return to Texas upon his release.

Police say she and Mills became romantically involved, however.

Police sources say Mills told investigators that he killed Leigh after they had sex in the woods near the town fairgrounds. But Leigh's family insists that the two were merely friends and that Leigh, whom they describe as shy and quiet, had remained true to the father of her child.

When she disappeared in October, Leigh had been in Connecticut for only three months. Her young nephew, a toddler who lived in the same rented house, was one of the last to see her. He told police he saw her talking to Mills.

The family, meanwhile, waited in dread for what they suspected. Leigh's father, Bruce, said the family began their ordeal hoping that police would find Leigh. But after weeks of fruitless searching, they knew she was dead.

``We're relieved it's all come to an end,'' Wendy Leigh said Thursday, just hours after Mills confessed to the murders and told police where they would find Leigh. ``But it's not the end we were hoping for.''